Is ‘Political’ International Law the Enemy of Democracy ? How treaties are used to bypass and reduce democracy and what we can do about it

The Oppenheimer Chair and the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) are pleased to welcome Florian Couveinhes Matsumoto, from the École normale supérieure (Paris, France), for a conference on the potential threats to Democracy posed by treaties, and on more democratic ways to negotiate, adopt and ratify them.

In this conference, Florian Couveinhes Matsumoto will give an overview of his research, which revolves around three distinct, but related topics : first, the way treaties – and especially trade agreements, investment treaties and treaties that establish international organizations – were and are used by a business and political elite to impose unpopular organs, procedures and policies over which people (and in most cases even domestic parliaments) have little control ; second, the reasons explaining why these methods are increasingly problematic and criticized, and why some political circles are willing to seriously address this issue ; third, how to improve the democratic character of treaty negotiations, adoption and ratification, in order to avoid two major contemporary problems : the fact that many treaties only secure the interests of a small minority of technocrats and large international corporations, to the detriment of ordinary people, and the issues raised by political uproars leading to the election of governments that are against the current form of international cooperation and international Law, but with no valuable alternatives.

The presentation is moderated by Professor François Crépeau, director of the CHRLP, and will be followed by a discussion with the audience.